Crashback
by ShiningMoon
Summary: Oneshot. In another universe, Vegeta is the only warrior left after the cyborgs attack. Too weak to take them on himself, he is saved by someone familiar...


NOTE: A short random thing that just came to me, and of course when I have plenty of other things to write. I hope you enjoy it despite the disgustingly adorable ending! I promise to post something longer sometime soonish. I'm actually working on it right now!

EDIT: This is a _oneshot_. Sorry for the confusion. However, I might just have to make a follow-up story...or, gods, turn this into a full-blown fanfic. XD Oops. We'll see.

...

His hands sprawled over the plans, and his young son strode in with a bowl of chips, scooting his chair in as he sat. "You're really gonna do it, huh?"

"Yes."

"Can I help?"

"Yes." He smirked a little—yes, this boy was meant to be. He'd met his son's older counterpart several years before; he'd appeared just in time to stop the cyborgs. The young man had seemed surprised—as if he'd planned to open the hatch to another place, another time than the settling dust of a devastated Earth. He'd mumbled—"earlier" and "Goku" and "virus" and "Freeza"—familiar words, all but the first. Freeza had returned to Earth, repaired by his father, and he and the Earthlings had fended him off with moderate success until Goku appeared some half-hour later. The battle had ended in a massive explosion, and the others feared that it would split the Earth. He, he hadn't cared at the time. In his mind he had a plan for escape if it did: two minutes to one of that woman's ships, one minute to get into space, thirty days of fuel to reach the nearest inhabitable planet—

But of course he'd stuck around, for his rematch with Goku. He'd finally convinced the dolt to take him on; had seen glimpses of the man's power as he battled the cyborg Freeza but needed to face it himself, to see if it was real. But not two minutes in, his rival's knees gave out and his hand clutched to his heart, breathing wild and power dropping as rapidly as that of a dying man. Because he _was _a dying man. He died three days later, for all the woman's attempts to engineer an antidote, and Vegeta experienced a rage like none he'd felt before.

Reports blossomed onto the screen in the following weeks, mysterious deaths and causeless explosions. Without his rival to fight, he'd been sure he'd have no reason to stay—but the woman begged him to stick around, telling him that he was the only hope, and ever more as the others fell. She bore his son, but he took little note of the boy, pushing at the limits of his power to ascend as Goku had, to at least match him in that way even if they would never fight again.

The cyborgs struck the compound early in the morning some year or two later, late at night after the boy had fallen asleep, Bulma collapsing into bed and himself showering after the day's intense training.

They'd found the woman first, and saw his own alarm as he exited the shower. For laughs, they killed her, and watched his eyebrow twitch beneath the pressure. He'd fought them—what else was there to do?—but was far too lacking to overcome them. They'd been pondering what would be the most fun, how to do away with him, groping around in their pockets for a quarter to flip when a flash of light had rippled through the area, and some attack he had never been able to identify ripped through the side of the room and through the cyborgs.

After the young man caught his bearings, hair drifting back from gold to lavender, he was alarmed the moment he was addressed by name.

"Trunks?" Vegeta had asked, and through the wide hole in the wall saw a strange vehicle, and heard even from his distance a loud, squealing beep coming from it.

"You—know me?"

The whining shriek of a baby from the next room answered the question. Still, he seemed shocked that Vegeta had been able to put the two together. When he'd asked how, Vegeta had responded, "Damned pink hair." The young man had mumbled something about being a Super Saiyajin, but got no more than a half-shrug from a quiet Vegeta.

The older Trunks had explained he was from the future—used the time machine his mother had built. As he spoke, the two of them left to find some bug creature, some certain-to-end-the-Earth threat, some worse-than-the-cyborgs monster. The young man said he'd been killed by the insect—the young man who was his son, who was a Super Saiyajin. He himself became one not more than a few days later.

Trunks had left soon after the bug was destroyed. The boy had said, "In my world, you die and my mother lives" and "For all the times she tells me about how awful you were, I know she wishes she could see you again." And the night before he left, Trunks had watched his younger self wobble around the floor, and watched quietly as his father offered the baby a sizzling chicken leg for dinner, and as his father tucked the baby into bed, eyes distant.

Vegeta hadn't seen the older Trunks since his departure, but was certain he had been by. Curled-up papers had appeared on the table one morning, years later, and Vegeta had left them there for weeks, thinking. He'd gathered the supplies over that time—all there was left to do was put it together.

"So is it the future, or the past?" the boy broke him from his musing.

"I'm...not sure. I think—the future."

Trunks grinned and leaned over the table, looking at the papers with interest and fiddling with a screw that had been left nearby. "Cool! Can I come along?"

Vegeta glanced down at the plans, shifting them around. Scrawled on the side of one sheet was an extra sketch, with extra instructions, a modification to the original plan. Below that was a short note—'For two' with a heart at the end. Vegeta looked to his son, who was now rifling through nearby bins of parts. "Yes."


End file.
